TV series review: Castlevania

Castlevania (2017) Directed by Sam Deats and written by Warren Ellis (contains spoilers!)

To many gamers and fans of video games, the name Castlevania rings a bell as it is a game that is 28 years old. It first came out in 1989 in Japan from the game company Konami and was heavily inspired by Bram Stoker's Dracula and the many recent film depictions of the vampire. The games were horror themed centering on a family of demon hunters called the Belmont and their quest to destroy Dracula. The first games heavily borrowed source material from motifs in iconic horror films and other Universal and Hammer film monsters. For example, the Mummy, the Wolfman, Frankenstein's creature, Medusa, the Grim Reaper and Count Dracula. Later on the games would include more mythological creatures. Funny note, the title is a merging of the words castle and Transylvania.

Since 2005 there were plans to adapt the game into a film, the director of the Resident Evil franchise Paul W.S Anderson was ready to work on the project but it was scrapped.

Judging from the many recent  dreadful video game film adaptations it is best to go with animation and so plans to do that were set.

Warren Ellis was hired 10 years ago to write the script and it was originally going to be directed as an animated film but as a trilogy and it would have been  straight to video. Ellis decided that the story was too vast for an 80 minute film so he conceived a trilogy. All three films were planned and when Netflix acquired the series they adapted the first in the trilogy for season 1. The following two parts will be released next year as an 8 episode season 2.

So I recently watched Castlevania season 1 on Ntflix and I was impressed, just a bit sad about how short it was. It was only 4 episodes and the episodes themselves were only 30 minutes. Plans on binge watching a vampire show all night long were shortened, but I still enjoyed it.

Let's talk about the show in details. Honestly I've never really heard of the game but hearing about the series and finding out it had vampires excited me and I checked it out.

As I mentioned previously this is a pretty good adaptation of a video game and a much safer challenge in doing it animated rather than live action. The script is quite solid and the characters are well developed.

The story starts out with a woman named Lisa entering Dracula's castle, by now it's pretty much established that Dracula is already well known and feared judging from the impaled skeletons in front of the castle. Dracula is already a vampire in the first scenes and introduces himself as Vlad Dracula Tepes. He appears quite gentlemanly and talks kindly to Lisa without threatening her too much. She states that she is a doctor and wants to learn more about science and the world. She knows that Dracula has a superior scientific knowledge and she wants him to share that with her. They fall in love and marry. Lisa (voiced by Emily Swallow, Amara from 'Supernatural') managed to tame Dracula in a way and to convince him that humans aren't a threat and he shouldn't be either. Sadly 20 years later Lisa is arrested and accused of witchcraft. As she is tied to the stake and dying she cries out, hoping that Dracula can hear, she begs him to not seek revenge and to let the people of the city live. Dracula hears of her death and devastated, decides to punish the humans. He gives the people one year to make their peace, to atone for the killing of his wife after which he will kill every human. A year goes by and the people are only celebrating the killing of the 'witch' and Dracula makes good on his promise.

The character of Dracula is more portrayed as a sympathetic figure here, having fallen in love with a human woman, swearing off being evil but as soon as she dies, in his grief  and anger he unleashes a hellish army of demons to kill everybody. You can't help but feel sorry for the guy, who lost faith in humanity as he sees them as corrupt and innocence is lost. He almost gets stopped by his and Lisa's son, a dhampir named Alucard but also known as Adrian Tepes. Dracula attacks his son.

Dracula is voiced by the great Graham McTavish, famous Scottish voice actor previously known as Dwalin the dwarf in 'The Hobbit' films. He is currently the Saint of Killers in 'Preacher'.
Alucard is voiced by James Callis previously famous from 'Battlestar Galactica'.

As the story progresses, Dracula is never heard of again and just disappears. His absence is not so bad as he will reappear later on because much like the game, he is the big bad boss that the hero must fight in the end.

We are introduced to the character of Trevor Belmont, a nobleman from a family of demon hunters who were excommunicated and exiled. Now Trevor is a destitute traveler who gets drunk in taverns and bar fights. He hears of the devastation of Dracula's armies and helps a group of travelling  wizard monks named speakers from being persecuted. Reluctant at first, he finally relents and helps them. He stands and fights the real enemy: the corrupt bishop.  Belmont is a very solid character, much like a Han Solo type of guy and brilliantly voiced by Richard Armitage (Thorin Oakenshield from The Hobbit films). The real evil is now the church and their inquisition-like ways, the bishop controls the population by blaming the demon attacks on the speakers. In one scene, the church is no longer a protection from evil as the demons easily enter and confront him. They state that because of his lies and manipulations, God has abandoned him. The demons even say 'we love you' to the bishop, they are impressed by how 'evil' he has become but they slaughter him anyway.

The ending is quite ambiguous as Trevor and a wizard girl speaker named Sypha find Alucard in a coffin deep in the catacombs were he has been asleep for a year healing from his wounds. Trevor doesn't believe the dhampir is the prophesied savior the speakers describe him to be. After a cool looking fight that is also pointless, Alucard offers his aid in destroying Dracula, he, Sypha and Belmont become allies and the show ends. After that scene I said 'That's it?', I need to see more, well we now have to wait a year.

The fight scenes were pretty good and very much like in the style of the game, it's very obvious and impressive, almost like an homage to the games. The characters and show are based on the game 'Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse.

As an animated show it works much better than live action because it is quite gory, thankfully not too much. It is done in the Japanese anime style and it works so well. there's blood, guts, even scenes were children are killed! This is definitely not for kids. It also has a lot of swear words in the dialogue. It's like watching an animated version of Game of Thrones. I think that from now on, video games should not be adapted into films anymore but into animated ones. Thank you Netflix and I can't wait for season 2.

 
                                            A poster for the 1990 third game in the series

                                                 The final 'boss fight' in the first game.

                                     Sypha, Trevor Belmont and Adrian 'Alucard' Tepes